outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

Surely rat piss is the bst disinfectant.

otm

xpost you saw that the head of the port authority was positive?

Matt Stoller:


The reason America can’t handle the Coronavirus is the same reason we can’t do anything else right. We don’t let the people who do the work have any say over how or whether the work is done. That’s why America has mishandled various wars, the response to Katrina, the financial crisis, big tech monopolies, Boeing, the Iowa caucuses, and the crisis with Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. American institutions are organized entirely around the short-term horizon of financiers, and these financiers seek to create monopolies and to grab cash by thinning out supply lines and generating hidden risk.

every tragedy is an opportunity to make money in america.

Lol @ Italians being Italian.

Can’t stop thinking of the old Italian man under quarantine bemoaning the lack of pasta in local supermarkets pic.twitter.com/s434Cu7926

— Sam ✍️🕖 (@halaljew) March 9, 2020

For those in the UK there’s a slightly glib but creditable doc made two years ago about pandemic planning in the UK:

Contagion: The BBC Four Pandemic: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p059y0p1

xpost That was so lyrical.

Weirdly, the test case town in the BBC doc, Haslemere, was the first place in the UK that anyone is recorded to have infected someone else with coronavirus.

A graphic of hope. If this can be contained within healthcare resources, its possible to keep the toll low.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ESrEfK7XsAEOHHr?format=gif

Two Germans have died since then btw

Moldova has banned all foreign visitors arriving via plane from one of the countries currently affected. Vietnam has effectively done the same by withdrawing Italy, France, the UK, Germany, etc, from the scope of their visa-free programme.

I wouldn't be surprised to see other countries following this line. The UK isn't going to stop people travelling but we may find out nobody's willing to have us.

(xp) Adolf Hitler and Blondi.

easy to find a spot on the Tube this morning

If anything, the buses are even more crowded.

Wow @ the Italian death rate. And yes, I haven't been a piece as hostile on Italy as ones on Iran and China in the coverage so far.

Also those figures are probably never going to be very accurate. What's the bet of plenty of refusals to test or people just not going because they can't afford to self-quarantine?

my instinct seeing mortality rates over 2% is 'those are the countries that aren't testing'

a bit of a plug here but i'm finding the 5-minute World Service daily coronavirus update very good:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w13xtv39/episodes/downloads

Moldova has banned all foreign visitors arriving via plane from one of the countries currently affected.

Russian thrall president/colonialist-in-chief Igor Dodon made some comment to the effect of 'betcha lots of Romanians living in Italy will fly into Chișinău to circumvent their own ban, we should be careful about those snakes'.

I reckon the NHS over here will be reluctant to test. Sadly that 1% will soon start to look silly too.

Struggling to understand this from the UK's Deputy Chief Medical Officer.

Dr Harries said cancelling big outdoor events like football matches would not necessarily be a decision supported by science.

"The virus will not survive very long outside," she said. "Many outdoor events, particularly, are relatively safe."

I mean, if you've got thousands and thousands of people attending a concert or match, even if it only survives a minute it's still going to spread fairly easily. (And from the WHO site "Studies suggest that coronaviruses (including preliminary information on the COVID-19 virus) may persist on surfaces for a few hours or up to several days. This may vary under different conditions (e.g. type of surface, temperature or humidity of the environment)."

They’ve done over 26k tests!

And I can promise ye the trains are busy as usual, albeit with fewer people coughing with their mouths open. Commuters are disgusting. Also noticed a decline in people deciding to have dinner on the way home. Long may that continue.

Sorry what I meant is that as this goes on I wonder if the NHS will be too stretched in its capacity to carry on with the level of testing required.

I mean, maybe? But it’s just a swab.

Maybe. It's the waiting time at A and E, whether doctors at GP surgeries will be stretched or able to see you.

Funnily enough I've just seen a couple of these.

Unfortunately I have a cough + a fever. Turns out I can't get a test because I haven't been to any affected countries or come into contact with a known case. Even though I have been through an airport + to a concert. This seems a major flaw in the testing system to say the least

— Sam Freedman (@Samfr) March 10, 2020

Communism...is happening:

Crikey!

ITALY'S DEPUTY ECONOMY MINISTER CASTELLI SAYS PAYMENTS ON MORTGAGES TO INDIVIDUALS AND HOUSEHOLDS WILL BE SUSPENDED ACROSS WHOLE OF ITALY AFTER CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK

— Andy Bruce (@BruceReuters) March 10, 2020

I’m not overly concerned about the health of Gove’s guy tbh. But I’d guess it’s risk assessment and those tests have been prioritising people at risk and people who are close contacts of someone who’s a confirmed case. They’re not going to test anyone who turns up asking for one, and that’s against the advice the NHS is giving atm.

Cool (I know who that poster is btw, I was engaging with the substance of that post). Seen a couple from random ppl. idk, if I exhibited symptoms I would call the helpline at first and follow but I would also feel like if I was ill and I couldn't go to the GP that I could be tested at an A and E?

But A&Es have been asking people not to go there? If you have it and you go to an A&E to be tested, you could be risking it spreading to someone there for something that could make them very sick.

a colleague of mine stayed at home last week displaying v COVID like symptoms. She's back in now, though still somewhat under the weather. As we're an operational hub, we've done quite a lot of scenario planning from mild to severe, with non-essential production and other staff staying at home in even the mild scenario (someone tests positive for COVID who has been in the relevant operational hub).

I asked my colleague if she'd been tested and she said she phoned 111 and they said they wouldn't test unless she'd been to any of the at-risk countries. Given the likely stage of the virus with 'in-community' transmission extremely likely (if it hasn't already happened), this does seem short-sighted on the part of the DHSC. I would have thought anyone with relevant symptoms should be able to be tested.

I know that some boroughs of London are trialling drive through and home visit testing, but not all.

All loan repayments, including household and business loans, should probably be suspended for a couple of months right now, seems the most straightforward way of preventing a sudden economic crunch point. We'll probably find out that a couple of banks aren't as well-capitalised as they're supposed to be.

The rumour - no confirmation - doing the rounds at home is that the government is thinking about closing all schools for a month. Idk why Coveney felt the need to @ the virus though.

In light of internal developments in Italy my department is upgrading travel advice to Irish citizens, recommending against travel to whole of Italy.
The Taoiseach will today raise the issue of flights & further EU-wide responses at a meeting of the European Council. @COVID19

— Simon Coveney (@simoncoveney) March 10, 2020

a colleague of mine stayed at home last week displaying v COVID like symptoms.

Do you know what they were by chance? Just wondering what (if anything) flagged it for her as potentially more than a cold or flu.

Days ago I posted a couple of things that claimed (for example) that a runny nose is typically *not* a symptom, but lately I've seen both runny and stuffy noses as (among many) possible symptoms. But the one consistent symptom I've seen lately is that 90% of cases come with a fever.

Assuming he meant to hashtag it.

Unless the fucking thing is now so widespread it has its own Twitter account xp

xp the fever is the most common symptom iirc? I can’t remember the last time I’ve had one, it’s def not normal for me to get one during cold or flu.

Snitch tagging has so far proved ineffective against the virus

xps

Royal Bank of Scotland defers mortgage payments for customers hit by coronavirus.

https://t.co/dkcJ1tKKtR

— James Melville (@JamesMelville) March 10, 2020

If the virus mutates into sentience we'll all doomed.

Not that having a Twitter account is a surefire way of passing the Turing test.

Maybe the virus has become self-aware.

Just checked again, and looks like most reliable symptoms are fever and dry cough 2-14 days after exposure. Right now I have a stuffed up nose ... but that's it, and considering it's exactly what one of my kids had a week ago, I find my stuffy nose reassuring. But I still get paranoid. The other day I woke up sore and thought oh no, here it comes! But then I remembered I spent a couple of hours the previous day delivering heavy food pantry bags to homebound seniors and I thought, oh yeah, that's why.

xp the fever is the most common symptom iirc?

Legit misread this as 'the fear'.

Snitch tagging has so far proved ineffective against the virus

I was being bad at maths above too... S Korea have tested around 0.4% of their population (not ten times that, as I wrote). USA have ticked up from 0.0006% to 0.0026% now. UK at 0.032%.

The known symptoms for influenza and covid-19 are nearly identical: fever, cough, body aches, fatigue and at times vomiting and diarrhea. Both illnesses can manifest in mild or severe ways or even cause death, according to Lisa Lockerd Maragakis, senior director of infection prevention at Johns Hopkins Health System.

As of now, there are “no unique clinical signatures” that distinguish the onset of covid-19 from influenza, Nolan said. Research on the known cases so far suggests that the vast majority, some 80 percent, are mild. Health officials have urged those experiencing mild symptoms to self-manage from home with over-the-counter cold and flu aids, rather than crowding hospital emergency and waiting rooms.

Those experiencing more severe symptoms, such as trouble breathing, lethargy or a fever that won’t break, should call a doctor. Both the coronavirus and influenza can cause pneumonia, an infection of the lungs that can be life-threatening in infants, children and people over 65.

The definition of "mild" seems to be wildly varying from "what the average person would call mild" right up to "hellishly sick but doesn't need hospitalisation"

Idk why Coveney felt the need to @ the virus though

COVID-19 is the disease, not the virus

CHRIST

It also includes people who are asymptomatic, like the old British pair who spread it through Vietnam and are now being quarantined there.

Greatly enjoying the video produced by the HSE about covid-19 (coronavirus):

Really important public health information about steps you can take to protect yourself and your family from #coronavirus #COVID19. Please retweet. We can all play a part in this national and global effort pic.twitter.com/o8tg9jqk6m

— Simon Harris TD (@SimonHarrisTD) March 10, 2020

The definition of "mild" seems to be wildly varying from "what the average person would call mild" right up to "hellishly sick but doesn't need hospitalisation"

Yeah, I've been wondering about this. There is/was one case on Oahu, the Japanese guy who was on a cruise ship. He apparently showed no symptoms at the time, but later developed a cold and went to the doctor. I asked myself, what would it take for what seems like a mere cold to send me to the doctor? As I related about my one experience with pneumonia, I only went to the doctor when I had a 100+ degree fever and horrible cough that was not going away after a few days, but I assume some people go to the ER for headaches. In fact, I know they do.